Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, P.O. Box 20587, Tompkins Square Station, New York, NY 10009, weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com

1. Chile: Student Strikers March as President Makes UN Speech
Chilean students took to the streets on Sept. 22 to push their demands for free public education and a reversal of the privatization policies started under the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Organizers estimated that 180,000 people marched in Santiago, with thousands more protesting in major cities like Concepción, Talca, Temuco and Valparaíso, making the protest one of the larger demonstrations in the nearly four months since secondary and university students began striking at their schools [see Update #1094]. Following a familiar pattern, the march was generally peaceful until a confrontation started between the police and a few hooded youths at the end of the route. About 50 arrests were reported.

“We’ve shut this government up,” Camilo Ballesteros, president of the Federation of Santiago de Chile University Students (FEUSACH), said at the conclusion of the march, near the La Moneda presidential palace. “We’ve got this park filled with students, filled with conviction and happiness.” Analysts had suggested that the movement was ebbing when just 10,000 people came out for a march a week earlier. Andrés Chadwick, spokesperson for rightwing president Sebastián Piñera, responded to the massive turnout on Sept. 22 by saying “a bigger or smaller march isn’t going to change the basic concern of the government” to resolve the issues through dialogue.

President Piñera himself was in New York on Sept. 22 to address the United Nations General Assembly. His government was ready for “the greatest reform, and it has promised the greatest economic, human, professional and technical resources for advancing towards a true revolution in our educational system,” he told the delegates, promising coverage for vulnerable sectors of the population and free schooling for those who need it. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/23/11 from correspondent)

Three students from the Darío Salas High School in Santiago were hospitalized on Sept. 23 due to the effects of a two-month hunger strike in support of the movement's demands. Cristián Silva, a spokesperson for the strikers, said their health was in a delicate state but they were ready to resume the fast once their condition was stabilized. Eight students remain on hunger strike at High School A-131 in the city of Buin, in Maipo province, part of Greater Santiago. There have been hunger strikes at about 30 schools in the Santiago area. (TeleSUR 9/24/11, with information from EFE, Europa Press, InfoBAE)

2. Colombia: Students Build for National Strike
An operation by the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of Colombia’s National Police in Pamplona University in the northern department of Norte de Santander on Sept. 20 set off a confrontation between police and students that left four students and two police agents injured; two students were arrested. The students had started blocking the school’s main entrances on Sept. 16 to protest high tuition costs, to demand improvements in the school’s program and infrastructure, and to oppose a national education “reform” bill. The riot police reportedly used tear gas in an effort to remove the protesters, who responded with rocks and sticks.

A number of Colombian organizations denounced the police incursion. “We vehemently reject the repression of the students, the entry of the ESMAD on campuses and the criminalization of student protest, the militarization of university campuses and all repressive action against the student body,” the Iván David Ortiz Human Rights Monitoring Center wrote in response to the police operation.

Two days later, on Sept. 22, 100 or more students, some of them hooded, confronted ESMAD agents at the District University in the center of Bogotá. The police used stun grenades, water cannons and tear gas, while the protesters threw rocks and homemade grenades. Ten protesters were arrested, according to Gen. Francisco Patiño, commander of the Bogotá Metropolitan Police. Three of those arrested were minors and were turned over to their parents, but the others could face up to two years in prison, Patiño said.

Colombian students and teachers have been organizing against changes that President Juan Manuel Santos has proposed for Law 30, which has been in effect since 1992; the protesters say the new version of the law would lead to privatization of the education system. Thousands participated in a protest against Santos’ proposals on Sept. 7 [see World World 4 Report 9/8/11], and the Federation of University Students (FEU) has called for a national “consultation” on Oct. 5-6. This would be followed by a national strike on Oct. 12 on the model of the protests that have paralyzed Chilean schools for nearly four months. (Adital (Brazil) 9/20/11; Prensa Latina 9/20/11, 9/24/11; Terra (Colombia) 9/22/11)

According to an opinion poll carried out by the Datexco firm and published by the Colombian daily El Tiempo on Sept. 23, 67.1% of Colombians support the call for a strike on Oct. 12, 30.9% oppose it, and 2.0% don’t know about it. The pollsters surveyed 700 people in 13 cities. (Notimex 9/23/11 via SDPnoticias.com (Mexico))

3. Honduras: Cops Arrest More Aguán Campesinos
According to human rights organizations in Honduras, between 200 and 600 soldiers and police agents raided the campesino community of Rigores in the northern department of Colón on the afternoon of Sept. 19. Residents reported that security forces broke into homes, destroying utensils and hitting both adults and children. There was also a report of homes being set on fire. Two minors were arrested: 15-year-old Darwin Leonel Cartagena and 16-year-old Santos Bernabé Cruz Aldana, the son of local campesino leader Rodolfo Cruz. As of Sept. 20 the community had still not learned where the youths were.

This was the second raid on the Rigores community in three days. On Sept. 16 soldiers and police arrested 21 people [not 40, as we reported in Update #1097, following our sources]. The detained campesinos, who were released later, said the police treated them cruelly during their captivity, threatening to kill women and children if they returned to their homes and to murder human rights activists who supported the campesinos. The Rigores community is one of a number of communities and organizations that have been struggling for years in the Lower Aguán Valley for land currently held by large landowners; as many as 51 campesinos have died in the conflicts in the region over the past two years. (Red Morazánica de Información 9/20/11 via Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (Honduras); Adital (Brazil) 9/20/11)

The attacks on Rigores appeared to be in retaliation for the deaths of a soldier and a police agent near there on Sept. 16 in what the authorities said was an ambush of a patrol vehicle by guerrilla forces. Campesinos denied from the beginning that there was an ambush and suggested that a drunken soldier accidentally detonated a grenade inside the vehicle. Vitalino Alvarez, a spokesperson for the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), told Honduran media that the road is straight where rebels allegedly ambushed the patrol vehicle and that there aren’t enough trees and bushes there to provide cover for attackers. Alvarez says he went to the hospital right after the attack and saw injuries that were consistent with a grenade explosion, not an assault with rifles. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 9/20/11)

4. Central America: Abuse Continues in US-Linked Maquilas
Managers at two factories in northern Honduras owned by the US clothing firm Delta Apparel, Inc. are continuing to threaten women employees suffering from work-related injuries, according to a Sept. 22 statement by the Honduran Women’s Collective (CODEMUH). The group, which reported labor abuses at the plants in July [see Update #1090], said injured workers had applied to the Labor and Social Security Secretariat (STSS) to have the company reassign them to other work. Management has responded by saying there are no other jobs available and these employees aren’t competent at the work, CODEMUH reported. The two plants are Delta Apparel Honduras and Delta Apparel Cortés, maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export) in Cortés department. (Adital (Brazil) 9/23/11)

Students in the US are now campaigning against university contracts with Silver Star Merchandising, a Dallas Cowboys affiliate, because of reports of labor abuse at two apparel maquiladoras that the firm has used in El Salvador and one in Indonesia. The US group United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) reported harassment of union supporters at both Salvadoran plants; there were also reports of contaminated drinking water and illegal compulsory overtime at one of these factories. The University of Southern California has already signed a contract with Silver Star for producing college-logo apparel, and Ohio State University is considering a similar contract. News reports didn’t identify the two Salvadoran factories. (New York Times 9/24/11)

In July 2010 a campaign by USAS at several universities forced the US sportswear giant Nike, Inc to pay $1.54 million to some 1,600 workers laid off by two Nike subcontractors in Honduras [see Update #1042].

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com

*1. Mexico: Have Electrical Workers Won Their Two-Year Struggle?
Leaders of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) reached an agreement with Mexico’s federal government on Sept. 13 that ended a sit-in the unionists had been holding in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo, since March. In exchange for stopping the protest, the union received a pledge that the authorities would negotiate a way for some 16,720 laid-off members to return to work. The government also agreed to free up union funds worth 21 million pesos (about $1.6 million) that it had frozen and to review the cases of SME members arrested in the two years of struggle between the authorities and the unionists.

The SME members packed up their tents and belongings and vacated the plaza in time for maintenance crews to begin preparing for Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which are traditionally held there on Sept. 15 and 16. Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, the head of the government of the Federal District (DF, Mexico City), thanked the union for “freeing” the Zócalo. Union leaders said Ebrard, who is seeking the nomination of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) for the 2012 presidential election, was key to the negotiations.

The face-off between the government and the SME, one of the country’s largest independent unions, began the night of Oct. 10, 2009, when Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa abruptly liquidated the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) and terminated some 44,000 employees [see Update #1007]. About 27,280 workers accepted the government’s severance package, but the others followed the union leadership’s strategy, which combined negotiations with militant protests, including a 90-day hunger strike last year and joint actions with other unions [see Updates #1041, 1066]. SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores and his slate easily won reelection in a vote last June by the remaining active union members and the retirees. Meanwhile, residents of the central area of Mexico that had been served by the LFC complained about frequent blackouts and high electricity bills after the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) took on LFC’s customers.

The respected labor law expert Néstor de Buen wrote on Sept. 18 that Esparza had had a “notable success” in winning the Sept. 13 agreement with the government. Esparza himself was more cautious. The government has agreed to hold weekly meetings to resolve the employment issue by Nov. 30, but it has yet to start rehiring the laid-off workers. At the Zócalo on Sept. 13 Esparza told union members that the accord was part of the struggle, but that pressure from the workers was still necessary. He said the SME leaders didn’t have confidence in the government; instead, they trusted the members’ capacity for mobilizing. (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/14/11, 9/18/11; Mexican Labor News & Analysis, August 2011)

*2. Honduras: Campesinos Arrested as Aguán Violence Continues
Honduran authorities say armed rebels killed a police agent and a soldier in a military-police patrol the afternoon of Sept. 16 in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of numerous violent struggles over land over the past two years [see Updates #1094, 1096]. According to Gen. René Osorio Canales, head of the Armed Forces Joint General Staff, the soldiers and police agents were in two vehicles carrying out a routine patrol at the La Consentida estate, in Sonaguera municipality in the northern department of Colón, when they were ambushed by “people with high-caliber weapons, people who have dedicated themselves to guerrilla activities.”

Police agent Antony Costly was killed at the scene, and Mariano García Bernal, a soldier, died later at a hospital. A police agent and two soldiers were wounded. The patrols were part of the Xatruch II deployment that President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa ordered into the area on Aug. 15 in what the government said was a response to the violence there. (AFP 9/17/11 via Univisión TV; Proceso Digital (Honduras) 9/17/11; El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 9/18/11)

Campesinos from the area gave activists and human right workers a different account. They said there was an ongoing dispute over ownership of the La Consentida estate, which is held by a producer for Standard Fruit. Campesinos had occupied it but were removed earlier in this month. They returned on Sept. 16, and private guards at the estate called in the police and military. According to the campesinos, the two deaths resulted from a grenade exploding inside one of the vehicles—a grenade the agents and soldiers may have been planning to throw out the window at the campesinos. After the explosion, the patrols arrested some 40 campesinos from the nearby Rigores community, and apparently took them to a police station in Tocoa municipality.

As of Sept. 17 human rights groups were asking for calls and faxes, in Spanish, to the Tocoa police station (+504 2444-3101, +504 2444-3105, fax +504 2444-3105). Adrienne Pine, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, called on the night of Sept. 16 and asked a woman who answered the phone how the campesinos from Rigores were being treated. “Like dogs,” the woman answered. "Are they being tortured?” Pine asked. The woman laughed and said: “If only that were true.” (Quotha blog 9/17/11, ___)

*3. Argentina: Ex-President Walks in Arms Smuggling Case
By a vote of two to one, on Sept. 13 a three-judge panel in Buenos Aires declared former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) innocent of involvement in the government's clandestine sales of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995. The judges also acquitted former defense minister Oscar Camilión, former air force head Brig. Gen. Juan Paulik, Menem’s former brother-in-law Emir Yoma, and 14 other defendants. Prosecutor Mariano Borinsky, who had asked for an eight-year prison term for Menem, said his office would appeal the decision, although he himself is leaving his post to accept a judgeship.

Menem is the first former Argentine president ever to be tried on corruption charges. He was a close US ally during his time in office, and he vigorously pushed a neoliberal economic agenda of privatization and austerity. Two years after he left office, the economy collapsed and Argentina was unable to meet its debt obligations, resulting in what at the time was the largest default in history.

Using three secret decrees signed by Menem and his ministers, the Argentine military sold weapons to Croatia and Ecuador under the pretense that the weapons were going to Panama and Venezuela. Sales of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador were banned at the time by international agreements. Croatia was covered by an embargo of weapons for the warring former Yugoslav republics; Argentina was on the committee that was supposed to enforce the ban, and it supplied 800 United Nations peacekeepers to the region. At the same time, the Argentine government was secretly selling Croatia 6,500 tons of heavy cannons, antitank missiles and other weapons.

As a signatory of the Rio Protocol of 1942, Argentina was committed to guaranteeing a peaceful resolution to any border conflicts between Peru and Ecuador, but when a brief war broke out between the two countries over borders in 1995, Argentina secretly sold Ecuador 8,000 FAL combat rifles and 75 tons of munitions.

The Argentine daily Clarín wrote that the Sept. 13 acquittal “seemed to surprise even the defendants.” The paper, which is critical of the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, also noted that until recently Menem, now a senator from La Rioja province, was in a faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) that strongly opposes the PJ faction that Fernández heads. Now Menem is running for reelection to his Senate seat as an ally of the Fernández faction. The elections will take place on Oct. 23, and the court plans to wait until after the vote to release its written decision in the arms smuggling case; this will show its reasoning for acquitting the defendants. (Clarín 9/14/11, 9/15/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/14/11 from correspondent)

The trial, which began in October 2008 [see Update #978], has been hampered by the loss of evidence and potential witnesses. In late 1995 nine workers died in an explosion at a military arsenal involved in the case; the explosion apparently destroyed key evidence. Two potential witnesses died in a helicopter crash, and two more died from unexpected heart attacks. Another possible witness, retired Navy captain Horacio Pedro Estrada, died of a gunshot wound in his Buenos Aires apartment in August 1998 in what the authorities ruled was a suicide. According to press accounts at the time, Estrada, who was right-handed, was shot in the left side of his head, and his hands showed no traces of gunpowder [see Update #449].

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com

*1. Honduras: Cable Links Aguán Landowner to Drug Flights
US diplomats suspected in 2004 that Honduran business owner Miguel Facussé Barjum may have been involved in three drug-related incidents at one of his properties, according to a secret US diplomatic cable released by the Wikileaks group on Aug. 30 of this year. The founder of the Grupo Dinant food product and cooking oil corporation and a member of a powerful family that includes media magnate and former Honduran president Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé (1998-2002), Miguel Facussé has been at the center of land disputes in the Lower Aguán Valley in the north of the country that have reportedly left 51 campesinos dead in the last two years [see Update #1094].

In the Mar. 19, 2004 partial cable--Wikileaks says the full text “is not available”--the US embassy in Tegucigalpa reported on a “known drug trafficking flight with a 1,000 kilo cocaine shipment from Colombia” and “a fruitless air interdiction attempt” by the Honduran Air Force on Mar. 14. Unidentified sources told the embassy that the plane landed on an estate belonging to Facussé at Farallones in Colón department on the northern coast. “[I]ts cargo was off-loaded onto a convoy of vehicles that was guarded by about 30 heavily armed men… The aircraft was then burned on Mar. 14 during daylight hours near the runway.” A “bulldozer/front-end loader buried the wreckage on the evening of Mar. 15,” according to a source.

The diplomats found it suspicious that Facussé didn’t report the incident until Mar. 17; they said he gave the police information that “obviously contradicts other information” the embassy had received. “Facussé’s property is heavily guarded,” the cable noted, “and the prospect that individuals were able to access the property and, without authorization, use the airstrip is questionable.” One source “also claimed that Facussé was present on the property at the time of the incident.”

“Of additional interest,” the cable concludes, “is that this incident marks the third time in the last 15 months that drug traffickers have been linked to this property owned by Mr. Facussé. In July 2003, a go-fast boat crashed into a sea wall on the same property and engaged in a firefight with National Police forces. Two known drug traffickers were arrested in this incident and 420 kilos of cocaine were recovered.” Earlier in 2003 another suspected drug flight “terminated at the same property and appeared to have used the same airstrip.” (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 9/2/11)

*2. Honduras: Two Resistance Activists Murdered
An unidentified man shot and killed Honduran activist Mahadeo (“Emo”) Sadloo on Sept. 7 at his small automobile tire shop in eastern Tegucigalpa. Sadloo had been active in the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) from the time when the grassroots coalition was founded to oppose the June 2009 military coup against former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); he was also a strong supporter of teacher and student demonstrations in defense of public education. Zelaya called Sadloo’s death a “political assassination” and a “declaration of war” against him and his supporters; the FNRP said it was “a political crime intended to demobilize and demoralize the Popular Resistance.”

Current president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa promised a thorough investigation of the murder. “There is no interest in persecuting anyone politically,” he insisted at a press conference on Sept. 7, “much less in taking anyone’s life.” However, in August 2010 Lobo’s government reportedly considered deporting Sadloo as a foreigner who meddled in Honduran politics. Sadloo, a naturalized Honduran citizen of Indian origin, immigrated to Honduras from Suriname more than 35 years ago. (EFE 9/8/11 via Que.es (Spain); Latinoamérica de Hoy blog 9/7/11)

On the night of Sept. 8, the day after the Sadloo murder, a group of gunmen killed activist and journalist Medardo Flores in an ambush near his farm outside Puerto Cortés, the country’s main port, in the northern department of Cortés. In addition to running his farm, Flores was active in the resistance movement and worked for the Uno radio station in nearby San Pedro Sula, the second largest Honduran city. He spent the 1980s in exile to avoid being targeted in the “low-intensity war” then being carried out against alleged leftist rebels.

Flores is the 16th journalist murdered in Honduras since February 2010; the most recent victim before Flores was Nery Orellana, the director of a rural radio station who was shot dead on July 19 at the border between Honduras and El Salvador. None of the cases have been solved. The Security Ministry claims the murders are all for personal reasons, but most of the victims were opponents of the 2009 coup. (AFP 9/9/11 via El Tiempo (San Pedro Sula))

*3. Chile: Thousands Commemorate 9/11 Coup
On Sept. 11 Chileans marked the 38th anniversary of the coup d’état that overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973 and installed the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of people gathered in the center of Santiago for a march to a memorial in the General Cemetery for the 3,225 people known to have have been killed by the Pinochet regime. The mobilization was organized by the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees and the National Assembly for Human Rights.

Many marchers carried Chilean flags; some had signs calling for restoration of public education, the demand of a student movement that has closed down universities and secondary schools in a three-month strike [see Update #1094]. Camila Vallejo, president of the Federation of University of Chile Students (FECH), participated, along with other student leaders. As often happens at Chilean demonstrations, the event was peaceful until the end, when a small group of hooded youths confronted the police and agents dispersed them with tear gas and water cannons. Organizers estimated that 10,000 people took part in the march. (AFP 9/11/11 via Terra (Peru); Radio Universidad de Chile 9/11/11)

Plans for a dialogue between student strike leaders and rightwing president Sebastián Piñera remained stalled as of Sept. 10. The students insisted that before talks start, the government should withdraw bills on education reform it sent to the National Congress. “At this point there’s no real interest in finding solutions,” according to Camilo Ballesteros, president of the Federation of Santiago de Chile University Students (FEUSACH). The government is just trying to “diminish the mobilizations, diminish their profile by sending bills to the legislature,” he said. (TeleSUR 9/10/11, some from EFE)

*4. Haiti: Neoliberal Cabal Will “Advise” on Economic Policy
On Sept. 8 Haitian president Michel Martelly announced the formation of a Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development and Investment as part of a “strategic vision” that he claims will create 500,000 jobs over the next three years. The council is to help his administration “remove the brakes on investment to free up Haitian growth,” Martelly said.

The council’s two co-directors will be former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Laurent Lamothe, the president of the South Africa-based telecommunications company Global Voice Group. Three former heads of state are on the council in addition to Clinton: former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar (1996-2004), former Jamaican prime minister Percival Patterson (1992-2006) and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010). Aznar and Uribe are both rightists who, like Clinton, are strong proponents of neoliberal economic policies; Patterson is a moderate social democrat.

The council also includes Haitian American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean; Haitian Canadian Michaelle Jean, Canada’s governor general from 2005 to 2010; and Irish telecommunications magnate Dennis O’Brien, who owns the Haiti-based Digicel cell phone company.

Clinton already has a remarkable degree of influence over Haiti’s economic policies: in the country’s political circles he is referred to as the “governor of Haiti.” In addition to being the United Nations’ special envoy for the country, he is co-president of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC, or CIRH in French and Spanish), which was established to monitor international aid for reconstruction after a January 2010 earthquake. (The other co-president is acting prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, a holdover from the previous administration serving because so far the Parliament has refused to approve any of Martelly’s choices for prime minister.) The CIRH has received much of the blame for the slow pace of reconstruction, and its mandate expires in October. The position on Martelly’s advisory council seems to guarantee Clinton a leading role in Haiti even if the CIRH is closed down. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/8/11; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 9/9/11 (French), (English))

In other news, the newly formed Defense Council of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), representing 12 South American defense ministries, decided during a meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Sept. 8 to begin the gradual withdrawal of South American troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a military and police force that has occupied the country since June 2004. The force has been the target of protests in Haiti, especially after poor sanitary practices at a MINUSTAH base started a cholera epidemic last October that has killed some 6,000 people to date. Opposition swelled in the past month because of allegations that Uruguayan soldiers sexually abused Haitian youths in the southern town of Port-Salut [see Update #1095].

In its first stage, the withdrawal would lower the troop levels by 2,000 or more, bringing the force closer to the 9,000 members it had before the 2010 earthquake; since then the number has been about 12,200—some 8,700 soldiers and 3,500 police agents. MINUSTAH’s mandate comes up for renewal by the United Nations Security Council on Oct. 15. The Security Council is expected to approve a renewal, but probably with a reduced force in line with the UNASUR Defense Council’s decision. (TeleSUR 9/8/11, some from EFE, AFP, Prensa Latina; AlterPresse 9/9/11)

*5. Mexico: 71 Unions Demand Probe of 2007 Murder
Leaders of 71 unions in 18 countries have signed a letter to Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa expressing “grave concern for the lack of progress in the investigation” of the April 2007 murder of an organizer for the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Monterrey, in the northern state of Nuevo León [see Update #902]. After holding a press conference in Mexico City on Sept. 8, FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez delivered the letter to the Mexican president’s official residence, Los Pinos.

FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz was tied up and beaten to death in the union’s Monterrey office, where he worked educating and organizing farm laborers who were to be employed in the US under the H-2A visa temporary worker program. The FLOC won an unprecedented victory in 2004 when a North Carolina employers’ association signed a contract protecting the rights of guest workers in these programs. A year later, FLOC opened the Monterrey office to advise the workers on their labor rights even before they left for the US, and to protect them from corrupt recruiters demanding exorbitant fees.

One suspect in Cruz’s murder is in jail, but Nuevo León prosecutors failed to move against three other suspects. According to FLOC attorney Leonel Rivero Rodriguez, the state authorities have said at various times that Cruz was killed in a dispute over a woman, in a “drunken fight,” or because he himself was engaged in human trafficking. “I think if the investigation deepened, [the state authorities] were evidently going to touch sensitive issues within the government,” Rodriguez told the Toledo Blade. The unionists’ letter to President Calderón calls for the federal government to take over the investigation. (Toledo (Ohio) Blade 9/8/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 9/10/11; FLOC website, accessed 9/11/11)

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com

*1. Mexico: “Fast and Furious” Fells US Gun Control Chief
The US Justice Department announced on Aug. 30 that Kenneth Melson, the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), had been reassigned to another position in the department and that Dennis Burke, the US attorney for Arizona, was resigning from his post. The department didn’t explain the reason for the changes, but they were clearly fallout from Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled ATF program that allowed some 2,000 weapons to go from the US to Mexico, where they were probably used in drug cartel violence [see Update #1087].

The ATF is the agency in charge of preventing the spread of illegal weapons in and from the US; gun smuggling from states on the Mexico-US border is considered the source of the majority of contraband firearms in Mexico. Some 40,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related killings since the beginning of 2007.

So far at least eight US officials have been removed or reassigned because of their association with Fast and Furious, but the Congress members who have led the probe into the operation--Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA)—indicated that they weren’t satisfied. The two Republicans plan to continue their investigation into what has become a major embarrassment for Attorney General Eric Holder and the administration of US president Barack Obama, a Democrat. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/31/11 from correspondent)

Despite their apparent concern now about controlling the flow of illegal firearms, Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley have opposed gun control in the past. Grassley has an “A” rating from the National Rife Association (NRA) [see Update #1070], which lobbies against gun control laws and has pushed to limit the ATF’s powers. Issa too has the group’s “A” rating. (On the Issues website, accessed 9/4/11)

A report released by a gun control advocacy group a few days after the ATF shake-up pointed to what may be an important source for the US weapons that end up with Mexican drug traffickers. Using ATF data, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence found that 16,485 guns have disappeared from the inventories of some 4,500 US gun manufacturers during the past two years. There are no records of their having been sold. “Firearms that disappear from gun manufacturers’ plants without records of sale are frequently trafficked by gun traffickers and prized by criminals,” the report says. “Guns taken from gun manufacturing plants may also be removed before they have been stamped with serial numbers, making them virtually untraceable.”

*2. Mexico: Civilian Dies in Latest “Drug War” Mistake
Mexican marines shot and killed Gustavo Acosta Luján in the early morning of Sept. 1 in his home in Jardines de San Andrés, Apodaca municipality, in the northern state of Nuevo León. According to the Secretariat of the Navy, the marines, responding to an anonymous tip, were fired on from inside the house, and Gustavo Acosta, an “alleged criminal” with the alias “M-3,” died in the operation. The marines said they found a 9 mm submachine gun, an AR-15 rifle and quantities of cocaine in the house. Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has been using soldiers for police work in northern Mexico since militarizing the “war on drugs” shortly after he took office in December 2006.

The Acosta family said the marines came to their home while they were asleep, fired on the house and demanded that they open the door. The marines shot Gustavo Acosta when he came to the door, according to the Acostas, and they threw his brother Daniel Acosta to the floor, hooding him and placing a gun in his hands. The entire family was taken outside, including a nine-year-old child; the authorities stayed in control of the house until 7 am, and the family says the marines took computers and cell phones. Gustavo’s mother was hospitalized with an attack of high blood pressure.

The family and the Citizens in Support of Human Rights Civic Association (CADHAC) indicated that the marines raided the Acosta home in error. At some point in the operation, the marines also arrested Osnoel Rolando Peña Serna (“Mascarita”) four doors away from the Acosta home. He had been living in a rented house which had no furniture and was described as “like a safe house.” The Acosta family said they planned to file a complaint with the Public Ministry and the federal government’s National Human Rights Commision (CNDH). (La Jornada (Mexico) 9/3/11)

*3. Chile: Carabineros Admit Agent Killed Student Protester
On Aug. 29 Chilean prosecutors ordered the detention of Sgt. Miguel Millacura of the carabineros militarized police for the shooting death of 16-year-old Manuel Gutiérrez Reinoso in the early morning of Aug. 26 in the Villa Jaime Eyzaguirre neighborhood in Macul, a commune in Greater Santiago [see Update #1094]. Investigators found that Sgt. Millacura’s Uzi submachine gun fired the shot that killed Gutiérrez, who had been walking with his brother to observe late-night protests following an Aug. 24-25 general strike. Millacura claimed he shot into the air.

The carabineros, who have been accused of brutally repressing student demonstrations over the past three months, initially dismissed witnesses’ accounts of the shooting. But once the ballistic evidence implicated Milllacura, the carabinero command discharged him and four other agents; several others went into retirement. The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera asked for the resignation of carabinero general Sergio Gajardo, who had failed to carry out an internal investigation. The head of the militarized police, Gen. Eduardo Gordon, apologized to the Gutiérrez family. There were calls for Gordon’s resignation. (EFE 8/30/11 via Terra.com (Peru); El País (Spain) 8/31/11 via Vanguardia (Mexico); La Tercera (Chile) 8/31/11)

Gen. Gordon’s resignation came on Sept. 2, after an accusation appeared in the media that he had altered an official report that implicated his son in an automobile accident; the general has also been accused of telephone spying. Gordon announced that he was “tired of such wickedness and such trashing of the institutions.” Piñera’s government suffered this latest blow one day before the president was to sit down in talks with student leaders, who are demanding sweeping changes in Chile’s highly privatized education system. (La Nación (Argentina) 9/3/11 from correspondent)

*4. Haiti: Video Implicates UN Troops in Sex Abuse
As of Sept. 2 it appeared that some of the 1,100 Uruguayan troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were about to be repatriated because of accusations of sex abuse at a base in the southern coastal town of Port-Salut. Eliane Nabaa, who handles communication and information for the United Nations military and police occupation force in Haiti, told the Haitian internet news service AlterPresse on Sept. 1 that repatriation was a possibility. On Sept. 2 an Uruguayan website said the soldiers would be sent home in the coming week.

A Port-Salut organization made the accusations on Aug. 11, but the Uruguayan military quickly dismissed them [see Update #1094]. Apparently the decision to act on the charges followed the appearance of a cell phone video showing four MINUSTAH soldiers forcing an 18-year-old Haitian youth on to a bed. The video was posted on the ABC News website on Sept. 2. According to the youth, the soldiers beat him and sexually molested him in the incident, which occurred in July. A medical certificate filed in a Haitian court confirms that he was beaten and suffered injuries consistent with sexual assault.

*5. Puerto Rico: Who’s Playing Dirty Tricks on the Macheteros?
Puerto Rican independence activist Hilton Fernández Diamante has charged that in June US federal agents planted an electronic device in his car while it was parked in the apartment tower complex where he lives in Trujillo Alto, south of San Juan. Photographs, an eyewitness account and statements by the apartment complex’s management confirm that people who identified themselves as Puerto Rican police agents were in the parking area while Fernández Diamante was in New York to meet with a lawyer. Told about the suspicious activity on his return, Fernández Diamante called the Puerto Rican police's bomb squad on June 15. Police agents evacuated the area and removed the device.

A former member of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros, Fernández Diamante served five years in jail in connection with the group’s 1983 armed robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, one of the largest robberies in US history. In June he agreed to be a spokesperson for Norberto González Claudio, who was arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in May in the central Puerto Rico town of Cayey; González Claudio had spent 25 years as a fugitive from charges related to the Wells Fargo robbery. Fernández Diamante’s decision to be active in the González Claudio case may have motivated the installation of the device in his car, according to a statement issued on Aug. 31 by a committee formed to support Norberto González Claudio and his brother Avelino. [Avelino González Claudio pleaded guilty to charges in the Wells Fargo case in February 2010, after his capture in 2008; see Update #1021.]

An unidentified law enforcement source told the Hartford Courant that the device planted in Fernández Diamante’s car sent out an electronic signal that would have enabled agents to track the vehicle. His supporters say they don’t discount the possibility that the device was a bomb. The FBI office in San Juan declined to comment. (Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 6/15/11; Hartford (CT) Courant 9/2/11)

On June 22, Jennifer González, the president of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, received an envelope containing white powder; this led to an evacuation of the Capitol building for fear of a terrorist attack. Rep. Charlie Hernández received a similar envelope at his office on Aug. 17. In both cases, a “Commander Nacho” of the Macheteros assumed responsibility. But an Aug. 18 communiqué said to be sent by the Macheteros “from someplace in the Heart of the People” denied any connection with the action. The message said the group has “never used chemical weapons that could endanger the safety of the people.” (PH 8/20/11)

About the Update

ISSN#: 1084 922X. From 1990 to 2015 Weekly News Update on the Americas covered news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It was published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. We continue to post occasional links or articles. For more information, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.